I hate spiders. That said, I do realize their benefit in the garden. Benefits aside, they always find me, and my succulent person has often been the victim of their bites more times than I care to remember. Earlier this week, I noticed a semi-large one just outside my front window. It wouldn’t have been able to get inside, but it had gotten under the screen and spun a few palatial webs against the glass; he was living the life for sure. I vowed to kill it at some point, but ended up forgetting.

Until tonight.

I went outside to turn the front sprinklers on, and noticed a wayward cricket had made its way under the screen, too. It was unaware of the lurking danger and webby mess that it was nearing, but as I watched for a few moments, I noticed that the spider wasn’t unaware at all. It would move about a quarter-inch toward the perky cricket every few seconds. And I wasn’t about to have such a murder go down on my property.

I made a beeline to the backyard to retrieve the wasp and hornet spray (works wonderfully on every size spider, too), and began my deliberate trek back toward the calculating spider.

The cricket was still safe, so I blew on it a bit to scoot it over to a corner of the window while I shot the murderous spray at the spider. He was a good as dead, but the fumes were making the cricket start to freak.

Cricket hopped upwards, but stopped abruptly when it detected the web. As the spider slowly struggled, the cricket deftly hopped over its writhing corpse and flattened itself to exit under a corner that yielded just enough room.

I rule.

Tonight, while I feel badly for any spider babies that I turned into orphans (no, not really), I am thankful to have saved myself from the inevitable spider bite I know I would’ve endured by letting that creepy dude live for much longer, and am glad to have been able to let the cricket live a longer life than it surely would have had I not intervened. May my cat not spot it and render my efforts meaningless.